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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Leaving someone stranded at 1am at night

449 replies

dranaksjd · 30/08/2016 15:32

Honest opinions wanted here.

Here's the scenario. My friend (she's 26) foudn herself having to return home much later than she expected. This meant she had to get the last train home from Birmingham city centre.

There was a mix up on the departure board which meant she got on the wrong train and ended up in a tiny train station in a village quite far from any major city.

She was clearly distressed as she got off the train and a couple overheard her conversation to her friend. She explain she had only £10
On her, no bank card on her and no idea where she was and no charge on her phone to call anyone to see if they could pick her up.

The couple said they would take her to the main train station in the nearest city which was 10 minutes drive away.

So she got in the car. They dropped her off at that train station at 1am.

She then found a pub willing to let her charge her phone and then when the pub closed she returned to the train station at 2 am. It was at 4am before she realised she could do an emergency transaction using her natwest online banking app.
She comes across as someone who would be comfortably well off so I'm guessing the couple thought she had money but she had explained she did not have her card on her.

She then paid a lot of money for a taxi home.

Now obviously it was nice of the couple to give her a lift the the main train station, but it didn't actually help her much. And they left her at 1am with no cash on her, outside a train station which was boarded up and closed.

That doesn't sit well with me and isn't something I would do. Or am I being unreasonable? Obviously it was unwise of her to travel back at that time but she was not expecting that morning when she left the house to be travelling at that time.

Honest opinions wanted here. And I'm genuinely not the person this post is about.

Just genuinely interested in what others opinion is.

OP posts:
JustAnotherPoster00 · 30/08/2016 15:58

I don't think your friend is being particularly honest with you OP

tofutti · 30/08/2016 15:58

If she had no card what use was the online transfer?

You get a one-time code from the app that you can use to get cash from a machine, without a debit card.

BillSykesDog · 30/08/2016 15:58

Why didn't she ask them to drop her at a police station? They will help you if stranded and let you wait in the foyer if necessary.

JenLindleyShitMom · 30/08/2016 15:59

She sounds like someone I know who is constantly finding herself in a predicament that usually means someone else bailing her out with money or a lift. And if no-one can help it results in tears and stress and possibly a day off work because it was just all so much and a long post on FB about knowing who your true friends are when you find yourself needing help. It's tiresome. You're a grown ass woman. Take responsibility for yourself.

bloodyteenagers · 30/08/2016 15:59

Well that's you. Other people will have to get up in the morning for work and the idea of getting home at 3 or 4 in the morning isn't something most will be prepared to do. Other people are financially struggling, and the extra cost of petrol not an option.

Pineappletastic · 30/08/2016 15:59

They overheard her telling her friend on the phone that she had no charge on her phone to call anyone for help? That makes literally zero sense. Why couldn't the friend have arranged for someone to help her?

I'm not sure what they should have done instead? They probably though it was better for her to be at the larger station where there would be other people/open pubs/etc, than stranded in the village. She's lucky they were there at all.

Hopefully she'll learn from this and not put herself in the same situation again. I made mistakes travelling when I was younger than 26, mostly missing the last train home and having to hang about until the next morning, I wouldn't have forked out for a taxi home even if I'd had the money! I'd have just killed time until the first train.

harderandharder2breathe · 30/08/2016 15:59

Yabu

She's a grown woman who needs to take responsibility for her own mistakes, and there's quite a list!

Being 5 hours late leaving somewhere
Getting the wrong train and not realising at any other stop til the middle of nowhere
Running out of charge on her phone calling a friend but not asking for help
Not having a bank card on her
Not realising about the app
Taking an hour to charge her phone enough to make s call
Not realising that she could get a taxi to take her home then to a cash point then home again
Still trying to blame other people

JenLindleyShitMom · 30/08/2016 16:00

You get a one-time code from the app that you can use to get cash from a machine, without a debit card.

Ahh thanks, I've never heard of this. Is it just certain banks?

MackerelOfFact · 30/08/2016 16:00

I personally wouldn't get into a stranger's car at 1am in a remote location, but that's just me! If she had means for to pay for a taxi without her bank card (?) she should have just asked the couple if they'd mind calling her a cab.

Really though, she made three pretty monumentally stupid errors by forgetting her card, having no phone charge and getting on the wrong train. At 26 there's no excuse really for being that disorganised.

steff13 · 30/08/2016 16:00

I would have definetly driven her home. I would drive about an hour in this circumstance and have done so before for a foreign student I met a few years ago stranded at an airport.

Maybe they had kids to get home to. Or one of them had to work later that day and didn't want to be driving all over creation at 1am.

Why didn't she call you for a ride?

Has she contacted the train station about the mix up on the departure board?

ElspethFlashman · 30/08/2016 16:00

"My battery is about to die and I'm stranded here with a tenner and no money, but not to worry! Oh look there's a nice old couple who'll take care of me! Ta ra!!"

And how did she manage to pay for the taxi exactly???

This story has more plot holes than the last Batman film.

JessieMcJessie · 30/08/2016 16:01

She obviously wasted her battery calling that friend if the friend wasn't able to come up with any useful or practical suggestion to help her (eg I'll pay a cab up front and send it to get you). What was the point of her calling her friend?

The app/cash thing is useful to know though- as other said, is this actually a stealth as for Nat West?

FinnMcCool · 30/08/2016 16:01

If anybody is to blame for this mess other than your friend, its the friend she rang and spoke to on the phone.
Friend 2 should have helped offer some solutions to the problem scenario original friend found herself in. Did friend at the end of the phone suggest getting a taxi, offering to transfer money, anything at all?

FeckinCrutches · 30/08/2016 16:01

You would drive two hours out of your way to drop someone home? She was a grown woman and they dropped her at a city train station, they could have just ignored her at the village station and gone home. I think they were more than fair. You seem to be blaming this couple for your friend being stranded when in fact it's totally her fault.

steff13 · 30/08/2016 16:01

I personally wouldn't get into a stranger's car at 1am in a remote location, but that's just me!

Nope, it's me, too. My first thought was that she should just be grateful she wasn't murdered.

JenLindleyShitMom · 30/08/2016 16:02

I were a group of people but honestly, I wouldn't have left a young woman stranded at 1am.

She wasn't stranded. She went to the pub then got a taxi home.

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 30/08/2016 16:02

Was she drunk?

It seems astonishing that she knew the train was her only way of getting home and got on the wrong one... They announce where they are going eight million times before they leave and at every stop. And then she had charge to call a friend who presumably now knew she was stranded and got cut off but didn't go get her. Then it took her two hours to charge her phone and a further two hours to remember she could do an emergency transaction?

I'm 26. I have forgotten my card in the past; and I've gone out and left late. At 7pm or so, when it was clear she was going to be later home than expected, she should have planned a route. She doesn't sound like she's taking responsibility for anything.

She's lucky the couple picked her up at all. Most people wouldn't and then she'd have been stuck in a small train station until the trains started again.

Original poster
dranaksjd · 30/08/2016 16:02

You don't need a card for emergency online banking cash.
That's the whole point of it.

I guess I'm being unfair then. I suspect they felt she had means as she was well dressed and spoke well.
She didn't look like a victim
So I think they felt she could afford a taxi. If she had looked more vulnerable maybe things would have been different.

OP posts:
JustAnotherPoster00 · 30/08/2016 16:03

Actually starting to wonder if the OP is the 'friend'

bloodyteenagers · 30/08/2016 16:03

Oh and what would she have done if there was no couple at the station to over hear her plight?

ElspethFlashman · 30/08/2016 16:03

"NAT WEST IS THE BEST WHEN YOU'RE THE SHITTEST (AT ADULTING)"

FrancisCrawford · 30/08/2016 16:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

pudcat · 30/08/2016 16:03

A well known scam in our town is to ask passers by for money as they have lost purse etc, so no I would not have given her a lift. I might have phoned the police to have helped her from the safety of my car.

MidnightVelvettheSixth · 30/08/2016 16:03

I don't understand how she paid for the taxi with no cash...?! Am I being dense. What good could a bank transfer have done during the whole debacle?

Also I think she was a twat to get into a strange couples car, they could have been anybody. Far safer to stay & sleep at the little station than to risk a strangers-in-the-middle-of-nowhere car ride to a big station in a rough area.

Your friend does not sound over endowed with brains, & the kind couple (who could have been murderers) should not have been expected to do anything more. Who goes out without a bank card ffs, if you don't take your purse then stick the card straight in your pocket!

MajesticSeaFlapFlap · 30/08/2016 16:04

She wasn't a victim...unless it was a victim of her own stupidity

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